Hello everyone…
I am guessing most of you have heard the good news… but if you have not, let me be the one to tell you. The impossible has happened. The Billboard Charts are out and in the Sales Rankings, Cruxshadows landed a top 10 song on the Billboard Singles Chart. In fact we debuted at #7. That was enough to get my heart racing, but there was more. Soon afterward I learned that based on our sales we have the number one Dance Single in the United States of America! Number 1. We get a number 1 finally and believe it or not its in Billboard!!!!!! We bumped the entire chart down with a debut at the top spot. Holy… wow.
Ok, ok… I know we can’t sustain it. I know that we are an independent and that pushing Beyonce, Nine Inch Nails, & Madonna down one spot is not something we can do week after week… But it feels so nice to be standing at the top. And I think it feels particularly nice because I know that the reality is this is something that our fans have done, and we are not standing at the top alone, but rather with all of you. Despite our CDs being screwed up at the plant, despite all the headaches and difficulty that seemed to be cursing us, all of you are the x-factor. You are the one thing that could not be fumbled, taken away, or dismissed. I made an appeal to everyone at our Dragoncon concert to buy our CD… Soon afterward all of the Sophias were gone. That was amazing. Thank you.
To all the DragonCon CXS fairies who tirelessly handed out flyers, to all the fans that bought “gift copies” and waited in line, to all of you who ordered the CD without even hearing the song… Well to all of you, our charting is your charting. Together we made something happen, and while the industry will return soon to its typical state, all of us working together did something incredible. We shook the tree. David brought down Goliath, even if it is only for a short time.
It also means so much that Sophia was the song at the center of all this. It is a positive song, one that for me embodies the heroic side of humanity… and a connection to the divine. It is a song that points a finger and says- “you, yeah you… you are the one that must do what needs to be done”. It is a song about finding yourself inside and defining yourself to the world. I am sure that there will be those who say that somehow this success we have won means that we have sold out, or lost sight of some earlier incarnation of ourselves… But the truth is that we have continued to make music about the things that matter, we have done it with our own unique sound, we have made our own management decisions, we have stayed with the smaller label we basically started with, and we have produced our new album without any so called “experts”… we did not want any interference in the artistic process. We have stayed true to the artistic vision that was at the heart of CXS. And now we have something, that nobody can take away. Together we have made a mark upon society and even if they do not listen, they will know there is something they did not hear…
A long time ago I heard that Socrates is credited with the statement- “If you change the music of a people, you change a people” I believe this. I have seen the strength in music and art.
If you do not have Sophia and were thinking of picking it up, please do. There may be enough interest in the second week to retain some momentum in the charts. I expect the single will show up in iTunes very soon, and I know that the European release date is coming up quickly as well. Hopefully the Europeans will enjoy it as well. I guess we will find out soon because we will begin our world tour in Europe in mid- October and carry through until December. Through summer of 2007 we will visit even more countries around the world, and we will return to the US to support the new album DreamCypher.
I regret to inform the fans in South America that due to difficulties with Visas and paperwork we were forced to cancel our tour there in 2006. We are still interested in coming, but we will have to see how our other touring plans pan out. But I would like to issue an apology to all of you who have waited so long for us to come. I am very sorry that these shows did not work out this year. We will do our best to come at some other point.
And I want to mention that I am also very excited about DreamCypher. I can hardly wait till January:-) But today, this week, the attention belongs to Sophia. Peace is born to your Victory.
My best to all of you-
Live Love Be Believe-
Rogue of CXS